Neil LaBute's caustic two-person play "The Mercy Seat" opens at a terrible crossroad in American history -- an intersection that has changed all of our lives in many ways.

In the cool, modern New York apartment that now sits on Theatre Memphis' Next Stage, a man is on a couch, watching the news unfold.

Ben Harcourt, played by John Moore, was running late for work that morning when two airplanes crashed into his destination, the World Trade Center.

Now he's hiding out at his mistress' place, preparing to do the unthinkably opportunistic. He'll pretend that he died in 9/11 so that he can abandon his wife and children and start a new life somewhere else.

Ben dodged a bullet. Now he wants to dodge his mundane existence.

His sole confidant -- his older, successful lover -- is hardly down with the scheme. Abby Prescott, played by Christina Wellford Scott, would rather not go on the lam just so Ben can "miss out on the discomfort of having to break it to your one-time prom queen that she doesn't turn you on anymore."

The stop-and-go, hour-and-45-minute battle of the sexes puts the audience at ground zero of a domestic verbal dust-up, a fight that needs both a cast and director that can explore the moral argument with a sense of crisis and immediacy. Try to imagine Edward Albee's George and Martha without the alcohol. "The Mercy Seat" has all of the snarling cynicism, none of the messy fun.

Jerry Chipman's direction makes it impossible to imagine why this couple would want to be together -- or why they deserve each other -- in the first place. The actors have little chemistry. Scott's Abby comes across as a scold, twisting the thumbscrews to see how Ben will respond.

Moore's emotional ambivalence gives him the appeal of a snake, not a disillusioned man jarred into rashness by sudden opportunity.

With awkward rhythms and crass language, LaBute conjures David Mamett's method of social critique through jerky realism and venomous, flawed characters.

This production gets the words right. But many smaller details are missing that would put the play into its proper perspective. The setting and direction seem so hermetically sealed off from 9/11, that the audience feels no connection.

In the script, LaBute writes that Abby should enter her apartment covered in the dust that blanketed the city. Of the apartment itself, he writes: "A layer of white dust on everything."

She and her living room are dust-free in this production. She's costumed as if she's heading off to a business lunch, even though it's 5 a.m. The numerous contextual lacunae create a barrier between the audience and the action.

In a play about moral disconnection, it's a shame that the production itself is as distanced from the actual crisis as its characters.

-- Christopher Blank: 529-2305

REVIEW

"The Mercy Seat"

Through Oct. 12 at Theatre Memphis. Shows are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $23 ($15 students). Call 682-8323.